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Q: What advice do you have for someone who is working full-time but is in the planning stages of becoming self-employed?

A: The most important thing is to focus on relationship building with the right people. This will make it much easier when you launch your business because those people will have a stronger desire to support you.

Use chat and communicate on other Pages that your ideal client already frequents so they get to know you. Try and help people and become known this way.

Have a Question of Your Own?

Each week I answer a question here on my blog so, don’t be shy! Send in your questions by leaving a comment here on my blog or:

This is what I am buying this week on my iPad. If you are an out of the box kind of thinker and love to read, you might want to check this out!

The Fire Starter Sessions is an apathy-kicking, integrity-infusing guide to defining success on your own terms.

As the creator of DanielleLaPorte.com–deemed “the best place online for kick-ass spirituality,” Danielle LaPorte’s straight-talk life-and-livelihood sermons have been read by over one million people. Bold but empathetic, she reframes popular self-help and success concepts:

: Life balance is a myth, and the pursuit of it is causing us more stress then the craving for balance itself.
: Being well-rounded is over-rated. When you focus on developing your true strengths, you enter your mastery zone.
: Screw your principles (they might be holding you back).
: We have ambition backwards. Getting clear on how you want to feel in your life + work is more important than setting goals. It’s the most potent form of clarity that you can have, and it’s what leads to true fulfillment.

Are you listening to the right things on Twitter? Just this week one of my clients had a break through when it came to Twitter.

It was awesome.

We were talking about Twitter and I asked her about using Search. Through our discussion, I found that she didn’t really use search the way I thought she could be using it to build her business. She wasn’t using it to find people who were talking about her and her company. Truth is she was missing out on a lot of conversation about her business.

We made list of a bunch of search terms and got to investigating. Guess what? Each time we searched a new term, we found people that were talking about her and her business!

I am guessing you would like to know what we searched now wouldn’t you? That’s the best part – it’s so easy!

Her name (not her twitter handle) but her actual name. In my case that search would be Lisa Larter.

Her company name (also not her twitter handle). We searched her company name as all one word and with spaces. We found people talking about her business in both instances.

Her name – spelled wrong! Yup, people do it all the time. They spell your name wrong. And, you already know the mistakes they make. You hear then when they talk to you. Go look for common spelling mistakes for your name and your business name. We found tweets under both – I am not joking!

This is a super simple and easy way for you to find the conversations you are missing out on. It allows you to acknowledge people who are talking about you and let them know you are listening. Most people I talk to have never done this. My suggestion is set it up as a saved search and then you can check it on your computer or mobile device easily.

The second biggest Customer Service mistake made by companies is ignoring a satisfied customer and thanking them for their praise and comments. It makes them feel their positive feedback wasn’t important.

Do you know what the #1 biggest Customer Service mistake you can make is? Ignoring a customer complaint.

Your customers might not be “tweeting the right way” and that’s okay. It’s your job as the owner of the business to find those Tweets and figure out the best way to connect with them.

Go do your homework, set up these searches, leave me a comment and let me know if you find anything.

I am a huge fan of Michael Hughes and you DO NOT want to miss this opportunity to learn from someone whose simple advice took my business to six figures within the first year.

He has been a mentor and a positive influence to me personally and professionally for a number of years. He is generous beyond words with his wisdom, insight and adds tremendous value for others.

Michael J. Hughes has spent over 38 years in the business world and is known as “THE Networking Guru! He honed his business and management skills with two world-class organizations prior to investing the last eighteen years building Michael J. Hughes Consulting & Training Inc., a business development and management consulting practice focused exclusively on Networking For Results™.

He has invested the past sixteen-plus years researching the wealth of networking information currently available, added his personal networking success and his experiences as a leader in networking organizations to create a proven approach that builds networking skills, accelerates networking performance and creates tangible results through his unique Networking For Results™ Personal Marketing Success System.

In fact, one of the most unique properties of Michael’s business success is that he has taken his company from an idea to a six-figure consulting practice annually using networking as his sole marketing vehicle.

Michael works with Fortune 500 companies, international associations and business organizations across North America, sharing his philosophy and expert knowledge on business-to-business networking, the social network phenomenon and corporate relationship management strategies. And now, he’s going to share all of those secrets with The Social Business Academy Members!

A: The great thing about Twitter is the conversation. There are so many other people tweeting first, really all you need to do is think about how to reply. Just be yourself, it is crazy how simple Twitter is!

Are you investing time and money to attend networking events? Are you meeting people and exchanging business cards, but not getting the results you want? Are you hesitant to network at all because it’s unpleasant, frustrating, time-consuming, and ineffective?

Many books on the topic of networking and business relationships encourage you to get out there, network as much as possible, and exchange dozens of business cards. Not so fast! Networking and business referral expert Patti DeNucci believes you could be trying too hard, networking too much, and doing so without enough planning and focus. What’s more, you could be networking in the wrong places, with the wrong people, and in ways that could sabotage your reputation and your chances of attracting what you want. In response, Patti wrote The Intentional Networker: Attracting Powerful Relationships, Referrals & Results in Business, a book that teaches you a more holistic, purposeful, and effective approach to networking.
The book offers time-tested tips that will help you:

Network less while attracting more and better results

Maximize your networking success before you even set foot out the door

Experience the power of becoming more focused and selective

Learn how and why small details matter and are keys to your success

Discover insider secrets to giving and getting better referrals

Patti was inspired to write The Intentional Networker after spending nearly 25 years experiencing and observing how business people network and attempt to attract more connections, customers, relationships, and referrals. She paid close attention to what worked and what didn’t: for her, for those who wanted her referrals and business, for her clients and colleagues, and for those she simply observed. Patti noticed that many people network in ways that aren’t focused, effective, or memorable, and in many cases actually backfire or hurt their reputations.

(Official disclaimer – If you order through the links above I may receive a small affiliate fee!)

Next month it will be FOUR years since I set up my Twitter account. Time certainly flies and I have to say, my affection for Twitter has yet to dwindle. If anything, it’s grown!

So, I am hoping that if you are still a Twitter Quitter I might be able to convince you to give it just one more try!

I also have a confession to make – Four years ago, I didn’t get it either. I was in a panic because I knew it was something I had to learn for my business but I just couldn’t make sense of it. So, I hired someone to teach me how to use Twitter and it was the best $200 I ever spent.

I love Twitter because it is the perfect combination of business tool and personal conversation engine that feeds my desire to talk to people when I am working at my office alone.

Twitter is also the number one Social Network when it comes to referring traffic to my website – so I know it works.

I love Twitter for many reasons and I thought some of the reasons might resonate with you if you are not a big Tweeter yet! I am hoping to convince you to come and join Twitter, or get back into the Twitter game if you have been avoiding it.

Let me tell you why I love Twitter so much:

1. I can talk to anyone I want on Twitter, which allows me to connect globally with real people like you and me, community leaders, celebrities, reporters, organizations and brands I like. This level of access is invaluable to me.

2. I can talk about any subject and I do talk about a lot of things. It doesn’t have to be all business. In fact, much of what I talk about is plain old conversation that allows me to connect and easily meet new people.

3. I can search and save specific topics and keep informed on what interests me really easily. I can then forward information I want to refer to later to my inbox so I don’t misplace it or, I can easily share it with some of my clients.

4. I can put all my Twitter friends into cool lists making it easy to pay attention to select groups. And, I can hide my clients in private lists so my competitors don’t know who they are.

5. I can get answers to questions immediately when I ask my Twitter community. It doesn’t matter if it is a restaurant recommendation or if I am trying to figure out how to do something on a Mac. Someone is always there to help. Think of it as a 300 million plus strong support group, and it’s free!

6. I can share photos very easily, such as the tons of pictures of my dogs I’ve shared, and no one minds. In fact, I use the hash tag #CutePic and lots of people retweet (share) my photos with their followers.

7. I can share videos that support my business or are just fun to watch, and I can share other people’s videos with my community.

8. I can voice my opinion to main stream media on topics that matter to me and pay close attention to the news in the city I am in.

9. I can create hashtags for my clients, making it easy for them to find things. I can do the same for conferences, live events etc., to connect with others attending beforehand.

10. I can host tweet chats and participate in fun dialogue in real time, allowing people to have access to me, and me to them, in a format that works and is engaging, fun and very interactive.

11. I can shout out people who make a difference on #FollowFriday and let my community know they should know about these people. This is a great way to make people feel appreciated and that matters to me.

12. I can easily recommend people to others when they are looking for help which creates a win/win/win situation.

13. I can block the creepy people who I don’t want to engage in conversation with (and I do block relentlessly). I want Twitter to be fun, so if you are mean, annoying or harassing in any way – you are gone!

14. I can make communicating with me really easy at events by giving the audience my twitter handle and offering to answer questions when they tweet to me.

15. I can create private lists for people I would like to work with, or like to meet and make a point of following what they are talking about so I can jump into the conversation.

16. I can spy on my competition and do market research. Yes – you can do that on Twitter and I love it!

17. I can schedule tweets so I remember to market and not just converse. I have a habit of being too chitty-chatty and I want to remember to talk about business too – scheduling makes it easy for me to do this and have a consistent presence.

18. I can take the online interaction and turn it into a face-to-face meeting once I have gotten to know someone. This takes away the anxiety of meeting someone for the first time because, even though you have only talked on Twitter, you really do feel like you know each other.

21. I can always find someone to talk to when I am bored and although this may sound funny, sometimes we all crave some type of interaction. Twitter makes it easy to connect and do that.

22. I can easily install the Twitter widget on my website so people can follow me and vice versa when I go to other sites.

23. I can access and easily interact using my Smartphone, which is how I interact with Twitter the most. I love the Twitter App on my iPhone and I use it a LOT.

24. I can use it to build my list, and invite people to my webinars by sharing the details around what I am doing and they are interested. I can tell from the stats on my website.

25. I can follow The Voice, American Idol and The XFactor and feel like a rockstar when The X Factor replies to my tweets (Corny I know, but I love it)

Twitter to me is one of the coolest things to ever happen on the web. You can come and go as you please, and you can use it however you want. There are no RULES (people may tell you otherwise but don’t listen) around how you use Twitter, you can spend as much or as little time there as you want.

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